Saint Ignatius and I heard knocking, the lizard bristled, and I clacked to the door, yanked it open, reached towards my former roommate, and yanked the sleepy end of her belt. It was hanging like a drunk snake or an unloved penis and I wanted to challenge it to wake up.

Zzzzzzzz’s dominatrix boots bossed us to her fake SUV and we slid into its cockpit.

I said, “It smells like baby powder in here.”

Zzzzzzzzz said, “That’s the air freshener.”

“It’s not because you’re adopting?”

We drove up Pacific Coast Highway and I confided to my friend and practicing mother-to-be that I’ve got post-traumatic summer disorder.

If what somebody wise said is true, and I have a feeling that this wisdom is either Amish or Native-American, that photos can capture souls, this photo captures the soul of my summer.

I verbalized some of the summery details that have been haunting me and toying with my moods. There was meeting my half-aunts that my abuelito had with another woman whose relationship to me doesn’t even have a name. It was upsetting seeing Abuelito’s face repeated in their faces, especially his nose. There was having learned that this woman whose relationship to me I don’t have a word for had volunteered to care for my grandmother whose suffering went unsoftened by morphine until the morning she died. A dose of morning morphine helped her to unclench, loosened her soul, and it left. I sat with her, shooing flies away from her forever pretty face, telling them, “You can have her later.” In the cemetery, there was the revelation that I have an ancestral pedophile and during the drive to the Guadalajara airport, there was the revelation that one of the things my family is most concerned with regarding my uncle’s prostate cancer treatments is that they will make him grow chichis.

You can’t spell machismo without half a chichi.

“Isn’t it better to have chichis and live?!” I begged of my relatives.

Half of them nodded.

I was yammering about the current state of my traumas, that I’m a little panicked because my uncle is planning an escape, dressed in Vietnam era camouflage and tin foil, from his skilled nursing facility, as Zzzzzzzzz parked in the Tustin strip mall housing the Encore Dinner Theatre.

We bought two tickets to laugh at Orange County’s funniest person, the title TJ, my funny, would be competing for.

Putting my post-traumatic summer disorder aside, Zzzzzzzz and I sat under a dinner theatre chandelier. We ordered chicken cesar salads from a waiter who could pass for Jack Kevorkian.

“Hello, I’m the Angel of Death and I’ll be your server tonight.”

Our host, Lauri Roggenkamp, a prior Funniest Person in Orange County, explained that this was a great competition because despite having comedians of various backgrounds performing material that is diverse as Angelina Jolie’s adoptees, a comic can still win based on how many friends they have. Judges would be half picking our winner but audience choice would half pick the winner, too. Lauri directed our attention to the cantaloupe-colored ballots on our tables and I immediately began devising ways to commit voter fraud. Voter fraud is okay as long as its done in the name of love.

Lauri Roggenkamp’s mother believes that stand-up comedy has destroyed her daughter’s chances of becoming President. The plaid heralds a bright future as a lesbian.

According to the ballot, 1.5 females would be performing. TJ was the .5 and once shit got started, two dark themes emerged, crystallizing like dark crystals. Most comics’ sets either revolved around the concept of MY LIFE IS A DISEASE or VAGINAS ARE HOUSES OF WHORRORS.

For example, we got a helping of I AM A TINY WHITE MAN IN WHEELCHAIR, a serving of I AM A BLONDE MAN WITH ASPERGER’S, and puzzled at I LIKE GENE SIMMONS AND ALCOHOL. In terms of vaginalia, this story arc took shape:

Act I: Her pussy doesn’t stink yet.

Act II: Now that she has expectations, her pussy stinks.

Act III: Shave your tits.

The comics who avoided these themes were the 1.5 women and the Jew.

In fact, the Jew mesmerized Zzzzzzz, I could tell from her look of awed longing that she wanted this lawyer by day, silly Jew by night, to sire the children she’s instead going to buy, and the best part of his act was that he admitted that he is so hip to pop culture that he understands that LOL means lots of laughs. He also crooned a parodic version of Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable. His version was called Unreliable and strongly implied his support of Planned Parenthood.

Howard Serbin has had it up to here with the rhythm method.

Unfortunately for Zzzzzzz, Howard isn’t moving on to the finals but TJ is. And she accomplished with without making fun of my nipple hair.